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Friday, March 20, 2015

The challenge from Kate's blog is to write for 5 minutes flat with no editing. The word today is REAL.

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Love
from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from
evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply;
practice playing second fiddle. Don’t
burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the
Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the
harder. (Romans 12:9-13) MSGOh how I wasted years living like artificial flowers in graveyard urns. Fake.But, really, was it wasted?

He uses everything for good.To spin round and gaze over the shoulder of time to the little girl lost and floundering--she did not know.Now I know love. For He first loved me.Real love. The turning round and remembering the barrenness of that girl's heart is the lighting of the flame of gratitude.For real love. Real salvation. Real sacrifice. Real rescue.Once was lost but now am found

This girl can open arms and give thanks for years without. Because my heart is new, my arms full of a love that is eternally real.There is freedom to be real about who I am and who I was.A new creature immersed in real grace.

Friday, March 13, 2015

This calling of motherhood is hard. For
years, I dreamed, begged, pleaded for children. I imagined days twirling
through green fields between mountains–The
Sound of Music experience. Other dreams included casually strolling the
mall with a quiet, sleeping baby, braiding a daughter’s hair, throwing the
football with a son. For this, I deeply longed.

Books told me it would be hard,
being a mama. Oh yes, I pridefully and knowingly nodded my head, reading all
the right parenting books to master
this thing called motherhood, years before I was pregnant. It was if I was
studying for a PhD. I thought I would be prepared, you know. My heart wasn’t
the sterile coldness of words on the pages of the books I read, but brimming
with yearning for a family.

Well it happened.Eight years after our wedding, we conceived
and birthed three children within three years.It was often crushing and
suffocating, and not the picture I imagined– the life of newborn feedings,
sleep deprivation, toddler tantrums, and isolation from friends. God’s grace
seeped in, and I began to soak up the daily rhythm and adjust to sleeplessness,
baggy sweatshirts smeared with the things of babies, and body odor (my own). Obviously,
motherhood was far from my pretty picture of frolicking through grassy meadows,
but I was grateful to be living my dream.

Still, some days, I seemed to lose
myself, and who I was. Anger could sink in fierce, as I craved peace and
control. As a homeschooling mama, it has been a constant challenge to carve out
quiet moments for myself.Each day I
enter high weeds of pandemonium. Cleaning breakfast dishes and juggling math
word problems is mentally draining for me.

In the midst of schoolwork, it often
feels like I'm juggling wild tigers, claws ripping my flesh, as I balance
different ages and stages, and each child’s individual needs. It is fascinating
the amount of havoc that sneaks into a room the moment I exit to help another
child. Not surprisingly, I typically do not return to perfectly behaved
children working on assignments.

On a particular day last spring, I
stepped away for five minutes while my daughter was instructed to complete a
handwriting assignment and my son was told to work on math.

When
I reappeared, the atmosphere had shifted from a schoolhouse to a surreal comedy
sitcom.My daughter was standing with
her weight shifted to one foot, her head tilted with a play phone to her ear,
as she was an adventurer who had to take a phone call. To her credit, it was a very
animated pretend conversation, jammed with expression and hand
gestures. So absorbed in her
conversation, she was oblivious to my presence.

Her
brother was just a few paces away, submerged in his own world, as columns of
numbers lay bare on the table.Somehow,
he unearthed a rope and tied his foot to his school chair, his body flung over
the couch.

These
moments often send me reeling into control and anger.By God’s grace, on this particular day, I
laughed.Hard.I was sinking deeply into their
insanity.My son informed me he was a dog tied up.How
about tying your body to the table and finish those mathematical digits?

A series
of events later in the morning involved three soaking wet children in a
bathtub, while I was in the kitchen multi-tasking.The bare feet, bodies submerged up to their
knees in water, and the soaking wet bathroom floor, sent me to that crazy place.I was undone.Windows were open, and I'm sure neighbors heard my freak-out.The faces of my children certainly registered
the state of my heart towards them.

One child fled the house wounded by
my words. Slammed the front door, rattling the foundation. I peered out the
kitchen window to see him barefoot in the front yard, forcefully stomping
dandelions with both feet.

Through the bright springtime grass
and knee-high weeds, I chased him around the house, in an attempt to repent for
my outburst. He ran jumped over our six-foot wooden fence, scaling it
like Spider Man.

In a last ditch effort for fear that
he might truly run away, I jerked open the front door and bellowed loud that I
was going to dial 911, because I had a runaway child.

Thankfully, that boy came back when
he heard the authorities might get involved. Sure, he’s only nine, but you know.
He came inside and we had a sweet moment together. Because God
enters into our chaos. He is bigger.

I went back to re-warming lunch for
everyone and felt a presence approach near my elbow.A little voice shyly inquired, face downcast.Asked if I’d have lunch outside in the
sunshine. On the patchwork quilt, alone with him. And I saidyes.

I was reminded that day, and many days
since, that I don't have to do it right. On the hard days, when I feel crushed beneath the weight of
motherhood, sin entangling my ankles, in the weeds of piercing noises from
children, and my body flailing underneath craziness, I can choose to remember that
I already have Someone who’s done it perfectly for me. The One crushed for me.

So, I laid on that patchwork quilt
and rested with my boy while he ate his lunch. Sunlight spilling on our
upturned faces. Yard thick with clover, wild onion, and crushed dandelions. Under twisted limbs of oak with hints of spring–
bright green leaves unraveling overhead, pink azaleas in full bloom behind us,
and yellow dust covering everything, he smiled a sly smile to have me all to
himself.

I sat in the dust-covered room rummaging through vivid kaleidoscopic
quilt toppers, my fingers rubbing the differing textures of the
hand-stitched hexagon cotton shapes. They were carefully folded and set
aside to one day complete, to be made into the whole. The day never came
for her frail hands to piece the frayed edges into their variegated
glory.

I visited their white wood plank home for over twenty years. Decades
of summers were spent stopping by for a quick visit so they could see
how tall we’d grown and sway on the metal mint green rocker on the
concrete porch. Other times we’d gather pecans from underneath the cool
overhang of giant trees, along the perimeter of their backyard. Usually,
there was either a homemade five-layer cake or apple turnovers, which
needed tasting. For certain, there was cornbread, with crisp brown edges
that smelled of bacon lard. Piles of recipes were stashed away in her
kitchen, but the very best ones were stored in her head.

This time, the visit to their small, unairconditioned home was
different. The house had sat empty for some time, and I was no longer a
little girl, but a college student. My great-grandparents were occupying
a room across town in an assisted living home, giving the staff a run
for their money. My great-grandmother was feisty, up until her dying
day—quick-witted and funny. As a girl, I tried to slip past her love pats
that left red marks, and were often followed by a little pinch or bite
to the bare flesh of my arm. I have no idea why she did this, but it was
her way of showing love. A painful way. I guess I might have some of
that same spunk if I’d survived all she had, perhaps I’d bite my kids to
show my fierce love. But probably not.

Those weekends spent sifting into years gone by– old black and white
photos, bonnets, knick-knacks, bedding, dishware, and furniture– was
awkward. It’s the fate of us all, isn’t it– a younger generation
marching into our home like an army of ants to forage through personal
belongings? The combing through of the entirety of someone’s life,
stacking and piling what to sell and what to keep. Estate sales on the
weekends to raise money to pay for assisted living.

We sorted pale peach Depression glassware, musty books, Naughahyde
furniture, a Hope chest, and years of dishware. Someone wrote a phone
number on a torn piece of paper and handed it to me—the number of an
elderly woman in small clapboard house in rural Alabama. Weeks later, I
perused the aisles of a fabric store, purchasing quilting batting, and
eventually settling on a tan calico cotton for the backside. It was made
whole years ago, that quilt—the topper stitched by my
great-grandmother, the rest made complete by a stranger. To glimpse my
children wrapped up tight like burritos in the hand-stitched beauty of
their great-great grandmother brings joy to my heart.

In their early nineties, it was no surprise for them to walk into the
arms of Jesus. It’s the younger ones that claw at my gut and rip my
heart. I’ve seen three of my best friends from childhood go to the
grave, much too young. My baby brother was in his early twenties, and my
childhood friends were my first cousins on my mama’s side, both in
their thirties. It seems too much to bear, a family losing so many sons.
My parents losing one, my uncle losing two.

I was thirteen when my brother was born and have memories carved deep
of rocking that bundled baby in the heirloom chunky brown rocker, his
fawn-colored hair gently brushing my cheek with the rhythm. My heart is
etched with a three-year old blond-haired brother on his birthday, small
hands covering his eyes as he made a wish, three flames glimmering on
the chocolate cake in the dark. And I forever carry with me the
belly-aching laughter of family vacations, scouting deer and bear in
Tennessee, snowball fights, and walking the streets of Chicago, where we
glimpsed blue sky and rows of freshly tilled clouds between
skyscrapers.

And my soul aches for my two cousins. As children, we navigated
shadowed forest trails with four-wheelers and bare feet, ran amongst
rows of corn, beans, potatoes, and melons that we picked straight from
twisted vines. We’d bury our faces in the raw red pulp and black seeds
of watermelons, the hot summer day ending with sticky faces, lightning
bugs, and the serenade of crickets and cicadas. We’d ride bikes fast in
thunderstorms, racing the sky—black clouds and pelting rain chasing us.

And yet we can’t outrun grief in this life. It’s inevitable, but
hard, how life still goes on after death—the globe revolves, the sun
still rises. The sepulchral cavity of the heart and mind awakens to the
memory of a loved one gone–the blush of daybreak still comes, waxing
pinks and oranges, the lilt of birds still serenade the day, and
squirrels scamper from limb to limb, bristling tails and skirting the
yard for food. It’s surreal—this cycle of life and death. Watching the
normal world go on while we grieve.

In the face of loss, the normal life can feel wrong. Instead, it
seems as if the ticking clock should halt, the clouds and sun blacken to
honor our loss. As time goes on, memories can fade, just like ink on a
newspaper page left in the sun, washed white. The brain may turns gears,
rewind the days and years like the backwards leafing of pages in a
book, endeavoring to recall the tone of their laughter, the outline of
their face, the texture of their hair. I’m surprised by the things I
remember, but more often than not, I’m undone by the things I’ve
forgotten.

That antithetical space between the first screeching squalls of
bundled babe and that of the last gasping breath before going to the
grave is an odd place. Some people say to move forward; yet, how can a
person go on living the same when life has been shot through like a
paper target, riddled with bullet holes? How can we advance into living
wholly if we don’t gaze over our shoulder and grieve what was? There is
no time limit for grief, and the walk into the dark pain is, in fact,
necessary if we are to move forward. Our tender God welcomes our
wrestling (think of Jacob). And, like David, our God is open to our
lamenting. David cries out in Psalm 31:9 (ESV) “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.”

C.S. Lewis said, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like
fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same
fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on
swallowing.”[2] That yawning, grasping, and aching doesn’t go
unnoticed by our God. How grateful I am for a God who is well acquainted
with sorrow, our bibles ringing out with the tremendous loss of His
only son, as well as the heartache in the lives of His people throughout
all time.

On this side of heaven, His promise of hope and peace can often feel
ephemeral, when I forget His goodness–that first sin from the Garden can
wrap my heart like a twisted vine, the sin of not remembering. As
believers, we can grasp tightly to the promise that our last breath will
usher us into the outstretched arms of the One who spins the earth on
its axis.

The trusting and plunging into the darkness is not a waste, as it can
lead to healing and a deeper walk with the Father. Even the times when
the darkness seems to swallow us whole, we must remember He is with us and for us.
Falling into His arms is sometimes the only movement we can muster, a
daily free fall weeping and wailing into the arms of the One and Only
Healer.

Holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom, said it beautifully: “When
a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away
the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.” [3]
Oh, how difficult it can be sit and trust in those dark corners of our
hearts. Yet, one day, in another life, the shattered and frayed ends of
our lives will be made perfectly whole. By His immeasurable grace.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

In the deepest part of my soul lies a dichotomy. Scar tissue gaping
from fresh wounds in the same place where beauty is emerging. Pain mixed
with kindness.Isn’t that where grace flows? Splintered wood, spilt blood, love poured out.Years of my life have been soiled with an injured heart turning inward to a dark cloak of isolation, self-pity.But something is shifting in the layers of pumping flesh — a
metamorphosis is taking place as my cocoon of fear and shame has burst
open. A flutter, as the Father gently guides me to press into
discomfort, risking vulnerability in... read more here

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Who I Am

I am a daughter to the Most High King. I spent most of my life running from the True Giver of Life. He rescued me, pulling me out of the muck and mire. I am forever grateful. I also love yoga, tattoos, and chocolate. Read more of my story here.